Demonstrators Flood Square for Obama’s Visit

Protesters gather in front of the Charles Hotel Wednesday, March 5, to call on the U.S. to take a more aggressive stance against the Russian presence in the Crimean region. President Obama arrived in Cambridge during the afternoon to raise money for the Democratic National Committee.

President Barack Obama attended a roundtable discussion with Democratic Party supporters Wednesday afternoon at the Charles Hotel, where he was met by demonstrators from the Harvard Ukrainian Students Association and the Harvard Global Health and AIDS Coalition.

Supporters of Russian occupation in Crimea made a brief appearance, as well, but had no organized rally.

Both groups of active demonstrators have recently been affected by White House action.

Ukrainian students said they were rallying behind the administrationafter Secretary of State John Kerry used what some consider pro-Ukrainian rhetoric during an appearance at the U.S. embassy in Kiev.

AIDS awareness groups, on the other hand, were angered yesturday by the release of the fiscal year 2015 federal budget, which alls for a $400 million cut in funding to the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief.

Police offers line up in front of the Charles Hotel as President Obama attends a fundraiser.

Obama’s meeting was closed to the public, keeping protestors on the streets surrounding the Charles Hotel.

The President, a 1991 graduate of Harvard Law School, left promptly after the event ended to deliver an address and take questions at a private Democratic National Committee meeting at the Artists for Humanity EpiCenter in the Seaport District. Obama, who arrived at the Charles Hotel just before 5 p.m., had arrived at his second event soon after 6:30 p.m.

Streets were closed off to vehicles around the John F. Kennedy School of Government from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. because of the Presidential motorcade.

Oleh Kotsyuba, a Ph.D. candidate in Slavic languages and literatures and online editor of a Ukrainian intellectual journal called Krytyka, was at the rally with members of the Harvard Ukrainian Students Association. He expressed gratitude for the Obama administration's support of a free Ukraine.

“We also want to emphasize sanctions for Putin to prevent war in Ukraine,” he said. “Many of us have families in Southern Ukraine. We are extremely worried it will come to bloodshed.”

The Ukrainian demonstration was organized by The Ukraine Group of Boston, and was the seventh rally organized in the area in response to Russia’s invasion of Crimea.

“This is the least we can do for our brothers and sisters in the Ukraine” said rally organizer Ilya Timtchenko.